


Take Me Home Tonight

by RansomNotes



Series: Happy Steve Bingo [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Bad Flirting, Bad Pick-Up Lines, False Advertising (cause these pick-up lines are fire), Happy Steve Bingo, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-04
Updated: 2019-12-04
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:28:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21669763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RansomNotes/pseuds/RansomNotes
Summary: Happy Steve Bingo 2019Steve went along with Nat's night out plan, but he never promised to have any fun.Fortunately, there's a mysterious stranger ready to turn his night around...
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Series: Happy Steve Bingo [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1561972
Comments: 2
Kudos: 41
Collections: Happy Steve Bingo 2019





	Take Me Home Tonight

The music was loud and thumping, and the room was dark and multicolored, and wow, Steve hated going out with Nat when she’d won a bet. 

Regular nights out involved calm locations, usually with lots of wood throughout the room, either in a dark smooth bar or a rustic long table, or maybe some trendy shiplap on the walls. But Nat’s selections after a win were near-universally punishing, obnoxious and cliched and painfully over-the-top. Sam never minded; Sam would be happy absolutely anywhere, and comfortable with practically any group of people, and that was why Sam was the perfect roommate for a perennial fish-out-of-water type like Steve. Steve would’ve resented being called that, sure, because he tried to relax, he really did, but he struggled to fully manage casual. Sam was the perceptive type, therapist career and everything; he’d said once that Steve just couldn’t manage aimless, and while Nat had rolled her eyes and thrown snarked back at that, it had rung true to Steve.

It might be why dating was always so painful for Steve, too. Nat would say, in various shades of amused, pleased, and annoyed, that Steve was her all-or-nothing guy, because when he went along with her plans, he wouldn’t back out for anything, but if he was uninterested, nothing could shift him into even a low-key version of the plan. He’d always been this way, even back in his hospital days. He’d been too much alone back then, but he spent time with his mom’s coworker’s son, Bucky, whenever he’d visit, while his mom was working and if Steve was stuck during a hospital stay. Bucky even showed up at their house now and again when Steve was lucky enough to be home finally, and they’d become fast friends. Their moms always joked that they weren’t sure which one was the mischief-maker, but the truth was, neither was and both were, because it was never predictable which one would come up with the foolhardy plan, but if they could remotely talk the other into it, they’d both be so gung-ho and committed that it was sure to end in hysterical laughter or injuries and tears, and nothing less. 

He’d have followed Bucky anywhere, and he liked to imagine the reverse was true too, but Bucky had moved away when they were young teens. Just old enough to feel a little complicated about their connection to each other, but not old enough yet to feel confident in what they might have meant to each other, and not a day went by that Steve didn’t regret that they hadn’t been more intentional about sharing contact information, keeping in touch. Bucky now was a ghost of the past, the one that got away; once Steve had grown up a little, and fully understood what he’d felt then. On the one hand, the uncertainty left from parting when they did was difficult, since it guaranteed Steve would pine, at least a little, basically forever. But on the other hand, Steve couldn’t help his relentless optimism and hope, and so he preferred this view, the chance to believe that they would’ve eventually become something more if they could’ve finished growing up in each other’s lives, without an eventual bad break-up marring their history. He liked keeping that thought, even if it meant he’d never get closure now, in the real world, where Bucky was only a memory, and hazier as time went by, unfair as that was. But Steve was loyal, even just to a memory or an idea, even when it hurt, and that was the important thing, he told himself.

So here he was, after all, dutifully following Nat and nursing a beer, trying to ignore the fact that Nat would expect to wrangle a dance out of him at some point, as part of her complicated payback plan. Steve was an abysmal dancer, too much in his head to ever relax into his body that way, and if she’d just forced him into it to laugh at him, he’d never have done it again, but she never did laugh. Smirk and tease, yes. But she seemed to actually like dancing with him, God help her, and it was true that Steve would do a great deal for his friends’ happiness, and Nat especially. He and Nat were ride or die, as his coworkers called them, and as much as he rolled his eyes at the terminology, the heart behind it was true enough.

And here was the proof, because as the music rumbled on, upbeat but very heavy on the bass, he felt like this was the “die” part of that equation. Nat would not appreciate the sentiment, that some club exposure might kill him, since she remembered the tail end of his sickly childhood years when a growling bass line really could’ve hypothetically triggered his overactive asthma and overwhelmed his scrawny frame. In that way, Nat was almost more his mom than just his friend, since she’d known him from hospital connections back when Steve was battling for his life as often as he’d battle bullies in his infrequent times out of bed. She’d only met Steve after his own mom, Sarah Rogers, had passed away, too soon, and before the relief of seeing her son grown up into an unexpectedly healthy and sturdy man. The memory of his mom made him melancholy, as always, and he brooded a little more intensely at his perch at the bar, thinking of the early days with Nat, and how painfully recent his mother’s loss had been back then.

It was a glaring surprise when the other man insinuated himself right next to Steve and leaned over close enough (too close) to be heard over the music. Even so, Steve had to yell back, “What?” more than once before he finally understood him over the music.

He jerked back as the question registered. “I SAID, OK, I’m here now. What do you want for your next wish?”

He stared at this overly confident guy, lounging easily on the bar, smirking at him with a smile like sin.

Steve felt his face was probably flushed, but he wouldn’t be able to pinpoint why: consternation, mild affront, and a not insignificant amount of lust. It embarrassed him even as he recognized that it was a perfectly reasonable reaction to a face like that, an expression like that. Such a bold declaration of interest from a body like that.

Unwillingly Steve felt his accusatory once-over drift into a more appreciative glance as he evaluated this stranger, and worst of all, as his eyes slid over that defined but well-proportioned torso and back up to meet his look, he could see the recognition and arrogance in the other man’s eyes. He’d been caught reacting, caught appreciating the body (but certainly not the non-existent tact!) of this stranger. 

He’d leaned in again as Steve was struggling to master his overwhelming aggravation matched with his unwilling attraction.

“Do you know my name? Or do you just wanna call me yours?”

Steve was spluttering out denials, or at least attempting to, when he brushed up against Steve to say, “Really, you don’t recognize me? Maybe we’ve only met in my dreams.”

Steve scowled and said, “I’ve never met you, I wouldn’t forget your face.”

The stranger smirked at that (smirked excessively, Steve thought, since everything about this guy was excessive, his looks, his smile, his self-confidence, his excruciatingly bad lines), and then he sidled closer to practically purr at Steve, “Baby, I hope you know CPR, because you are taking my breath away!”

Steve finally stood and lurched away from the bar, and from the dangerously charming man half-draped against him. He still wasn’t used to the easy and casual flirting everyone else seemed so comfortable with, and while he would’ve been irked to be called sensitive or shy, it wasn’t entirely inaccurate.

But the truth was that he struggled not to resent his new place in the world, all the doors that suddenly opened wide when he went through his delayed growth spurt and became a new man practically overnight. He disliked the fawning and flirting, from beautiful people who’d never given him a second look before his new look and built body, and he tried very hard to be intentional in his use of strength and even intimidation, to use everything for good. To accomplish all the important things he’d worked for before but struggled because of health, and youth, and insignificance, now within reach because he was suddenly one of the beautiful people, too.

Nat had seemed to understand his frustration, intuitive as always, since he would have been embarrassed to admit to anyone else his, well, his own ingratitude, as he mostly saw it.  _ What a trial, Rogers, to benefit from your own good looks! _

But Nat was a gorgeous woman who’d looked beautiful and grown-up too young, and she knew all too well how the world weighs and measures everyone by very flawed scales. She understood Steve, even if she channelled it a completely different way. 

So he resented the lecherous attentions like all these awkward lines from the shallow guy at the bar. He wanted something real, something more than skin-deep. He wasn’t blind, and he could understand the appeal of a one night stand, but that wasn’t him. No matter how lonely he got, he hadn’t shrugged and made the world’s arithmetic work for him, the way Nat ultimately had. He worried sometimes, that she thought he judged her choices, especially with how often he shot down her matchmaking attempts. He didn’t judge her. In a way, he even envied her relaxed acceptance of the world as it was. He felt stuck in a different time sometimes, stuck in his hope of things as they could be, a better world. Maybe he’d spent too much time daydreaming about a better future during all his time on bedrest throughout his sickly childhood. He’d wandered deeply into novels and comic books when he couldn’t travel any other way, and that deep-seated idealism, and preference for mind over matter, was baked into his bones, long before the muscles had shown up.

He finally weaved his way out of the crowd and out the door, into the chilly night air outside. New York never slept, and this club certainly never slept, not at night at least, but the rest of the neighborhood around them seemed quiet and still. He didn’t want to leave without checking in with Nat and Sam first, and he’d left his jacket inside when he’d rushed off.  _ Ran away _ , he admitted to himself, resigned but not embittered about it. Maybe he wouldn’t have chosen to be a loner, all things being equal, but a lifetime of lonely hospital rooms and missed school days had made him into one, anyway. He’d spent too much time alone, and his loft was more empty than ever lately, now that Sam was spending so much time with his boyfriend Riley. He stuck his hands in his pockets and leaned back, closing his eyes.

His eyes snapped back open when the stranger bumped into him and started right back up like they hadn’t even been interrupted.

“Are you a time traveler? Because I loved you in the past, but I swear I see you in my future, too.”

Almost before he’d finished, Steve snapped back, saying too much too fast. “Look, I’m not interested, okay? And I can appreciate the perseverance here, and even this unbearable but totally justified self-confidence, and everything else you’ve got going on here--” as Steve awkwardly gestured to indicate the stranger’s entire body, before hurrying on to say, “but I’m not interested, I tried to tell you I wasn’t interested, and I’d like for you to leave me alone now. Please.”

The other man had looked intense at first, shifting into unease as he dropped his head, and even curved his shoulders. He’d gone from larger than life, self-assured and near-sparkling with it, to this uncomfortably hunched lump. 

Steve shifted nervously on his feet. It wasn’t often he had to do more than signal the slightest disinterest for people to leave him alone, one of the perks of looking muscle-bound and potentially dangerous. No one ever listened to his “no’s” when he was scrawny and no threat. Occasionally, now, a pretty girl would push a little, or an older woman, shame to the wind, would refuse to take a hint, but never in his new body had any guy risked an overreaction by hassling him enough to follow him. Steve did value persistence, was the rub, and he could’ve liked this guy, all too easily, especially for the way his eyes had sparked with challenge and mirth, the way Bucky’s used to. 

The handsome man looked ready to shuffle back into the club, finally accepting defeat, but Steve couldn’t help filling the silence, trying to make up for his abruptness.

“Look, I’m sorry, okay? You’re a great looking guy, really, but this isn’t gonna work for me. I’m sorry.”

The other guy had perked up a little, and sidled closer again. “It won’t work because you aren’t gay, or because you’re taken? Or a little of both?”

Steve sighed at how he’d complicated the issue here with his apology, prolonging the conversation, when a simple no should suffice.

“Well, neither reason, actually, but I don’t do casual, okay? I’m looking for the real deal.” Something about the man’s expression made Steve keep going. “You know, someone I’m friends with, someone I want to see all day everyday, and it has nothing to do with whether they’re naked or not.” He blushed and looked away from that tempting face. “Well, at least, where we don’t have to be naked for us to have a good time together, that’s what I mean.”

The gorgeous stranger moved closer. “You really don’t remember me, do you, Steve? Here I’ve been carting around an Olympic-sized torch for you and you’re forgotten all about me. But you know what, it was miserable remembering you and then having to live without you, so I won’t begrudge you your mental freedom, I guess. I couldn’t ever really wish it, but maybe it would’ve been easier having you zapped from my brain, like in those ridiculous sci-fi alien stories we used to read, out on your fire escape.”

Blinking fast and barely breathing, Steve gasped out, “Bucky?”

He smirked back, “Who the hell is Bucky? My given name is James, thank you very much, Steven Grant.”

Steve had hugged him, immediately and smotheringly, and from where he was crushed into his shoulder, Bucky patted his back and laughed, mumbling, “Yeah, fine, you can still call me Bucky. Call me anything you like, pal, just get my damn number this time so you actually do call me.”

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta-ed atm, so please tell me if you see mistakes.
> 
> The prompt for this was "bad flirting" but you just can't keep a good man down; get it, Bucky!


End file.
